How to Make Gluten-Free Cloud Dough
After I posted our Cloud Dough recipe last week, Amy from Kids in the Studio wanted to know if it could be adapted into a gluten-free cloud dough recipe. What a good question!
This isn’t the first question I’ve received about gluten-free recipes since starting this blog, and I realized that I should be more thoughtful about sharing information that can help parents and caregivers provide rich learning experiences for their children. The original recipe is simply a combination of 8:1 flour to oil, so in the spirit of experimentation, I thought we’d replace flour with rice flour and see what would happen.
Gluten-free Cloud Dough Recipe
- 8 cups rice flour
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- A few drops of Lavender oil (optional)
If you haven’t bought rice flour before, it’s not inexpensive, and I can see why Amy asked the question! I mixed 2 cups of organic rice flour with 1/4 cup vegetable oil until the oil integrated into the flour, and then shook a few drops of lavender oil into the dough to give it a soothing smell. So far, the main difference I could see is that the rice flour made for a slightly grittier dough, but otherwise it was lovely. The real test would be my kids. I put it in front of my 14 month old, and you can see that she was in sensory heaven. My 3 year old wanted to join in, enjoyed it, and never commented on a weird texture of the dough. As far as I could tell, she didn’t know the difference.
If you make this gluten-free cloud dough, I’d love to hear from you. And if you have a favorite gluten-free recipe to share, please add a link or recipe in the comments.
Experiment with Gluten-Free Cloud Dough
- If you don’t have access to rice flour or if you feel like experimenting, try the same ratio of flour to oil with garbanzo flour, gluten-free baking flour, corn flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, or arrowroot starch.
- Change the ratio of flour to oil and see what happens, as the suggested flours and starches (above) will combine differently with the oil.
More Play Doughs
If gluten-free dough doesn’t concern you, here are more dough recipes to try:
This recipe for the BEST play dough.